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Reimu Hakurei
“It’s extermination time.” General Information Reimu Hakurei is the main protagonist of the Touhou Project series along with the deuteragonist, Marisa Kirisame. As the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, she manages the border between the multiverse and the outside world, and exterminates troublesome dangerous youkai. She is one of the main "incident resolvers" from Gensokyo. She and others characterize the time she spends at the shrine as largely boring and uneventful. Yukari Yakumo describes Reimu's job as not being that of a youkai exterminator, but rather a "balancer between humans and youkai", who prevents youkai from attacking humans and humans from becoming youkai. Personality Her personality is straightforward, optimistic, and a bit curious. She's quick to anger if offended, but just as quick to offer help to those in need. According to Komachi, Reimu has an innocent heart that can't truly hate anyone. While rather lazy in her free time, she's highly devoted to her duties as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, resulting in a "shoot first and ask questions later" attitude to youkai extermination. This makes her known to exterminate youkai indiscriminately, regardless of how much of a threat they represent to her or others. Apparently, however, she actually helps youkai in trouble when it really matters. For instance, in Silent Sinner in Blue, she kept Reysen (disguised as an earth youkai-rabbit) at her place to help with healing her injuries, giving her the bed she uses to sleep and even going to Eientei to inform its residents that a wounded rabbit was at her shrine. She also treated Sukuna Shinmyoumaru well after the events of Double Dealing Character. It has been stated that Reimu treats everyone the same, whether they are humans, youkai or gods, giving them no particular respect or disrespect. This habit has caused her to inadvertently befriend many youkai she defeats. While she tries to keep youkai away from her shrine, this is because it makes it harder to get human visitors, rather than because she dislikes them. At the end of the symposium in Symposium of Post-mysticism, when Reimu goes to break it up, Miko notes that though Reimu says she wants to eliminate all the youkai, she actually just wants to attain a peace in Gensokyo that doesn't require violence, like the others present wish. Abilities While many inhabitants of Gensokyo are capable of flying, Reimu's ability extends beyond that; she is someone who excels at floating through life, displaying a level of oneness with her surroundings that has been compared to a hermit. While she "goes with the flow“, Reimu displays superhuman instincts and incredible luck, naturally ending up on the path of least resistance through most situations; conversely, when distracted or acting with impure motives she quickly loses her edge. On one occasion, observers saw Reimu dodging an attack "like she was made of nothing", while Reimu herself saw the attack swerving to avoid her. This also makes Reimu's techniques extremely hard for Marisa Kirisame to learn from, since even Reimu herself has trouble explaining what she's doing. The ultimate expression of this ability is Fantasy Nature, which allows Reimu to float away from reality and become impossible to attack; this was considered too powerful for use as a spell card until Marisa gave it a name and time limit. It's stated in the omake.txt of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil that Reimu can control the natural spirits of living things, an ability which isn't listed in any source afterwards. No clear instance of this ability has been displayed in canon. Reimu displays great aptitude with magical barriers (beyond that normally associated with shrine maidens), presumably related to her work in maintaining the Great Hakurei Barrier. Among her techniques are barriers that explode, push enemies, or act as portals for her other attacks. Reimu is capable of dismantling barriers and seals too complex for Marisa and Patchouli Knowledge to understand, with what Marisa calls her "cheat technique". Story Not much is known about Reimu's history prior to the events of the games. Her earliest mention in the Gensokyo timeline is four to five years prior to Chapter 22 of Curiosities of Lotus Asia, which took place in 2006. ZUN does mention in one of his Shanghai Alice Correspondence documents that there was a previous Hakurei Shrine Maiden, and it's generally assumed that there's a line of them. In Chapter 25 of Wild and Horned Hermit, with night's darkness fast approaching, an annoyed Reimu remarks, "Believe not they will be around for you always: parents and daylight". The quote was thought to imply that Reimu knew her parents, but they're gone and she's rather bitter about it. Reimu was present for every incident in the history of Gensokyo, and playable in almost every game. Through all of those years, she has made no enemies. Instead, she only made new friends. In the multiverse, she made her first main appearance in the moonlight madness arc, fighting back against Toyohime’s plan to eliminate all life on Earth. She later reappeared in the the king of fighters tournament, working together with Hyde and Minako. Relationships Marisa Kirisame Reimu's best friend is likely Marisa Kirisame, who spends a lot of her time at the shrine. They're there together the majority of the time in various print works, prologues, and extra stage prologues, hanging out together and discussing or attending the latest events in Gensokyo. Reimu has known Marisa since Story of Eastern Wonderland, where Mima had Marisa fight Reimu. Their friendship may have started soon after that, as in all of the bad endings, Marisa decides she needs to train more, and drags Reimu along to train with her. Yukari Yakumo Despite her antagonistic personality, Yukari Yakumo mentors Reimu by pushing her to increase her spiritual powers, such as learning how to invoke the gods in Silent Sinner in Blue. In that case, Reimu followed her instructions and orders to train hard despite Yukari not informing Reimu why she needed to do so, displaying how much Reimu either trusts Yukari or has decided it's pointless to argue with her (or both). Yukari occasionally seeks Reimu's assistance in resolving incidents in Imperishable Night and Subterranean Animism. In this regard, she is an employer of sorts, as she remarks about compensating Reimu accordingly during the Imperishable Night incident. Yukari is also secretly a benefactor as well, fixing the shrine behind Reimu's back whenever she needs to. Reimu is unaware of that, however. Sanae Kochiya Despite being the shrine maiden of a rival shrine, Sanae Kochiya is on friendly terms with Reimu and appears frequently in Wild and Horned Hermit alongside Reimu and Marisa. She didn’t make a good first impression when she and Reimu first met, but she really thought she was helping the Hakurei Shrine out by attempting to get it to switch gods to Kanako Yasaka. After Mountain of Faith, Sanae offered to help Reimu as a fellow shrine maiden to gather faith for the shrine, and she appears to have been friends with Reimu since then. Nonetheless, the two have no qualms about antagonizing the other at times, though these quarrels are usually resolved by the next time they meet. Kasen Ibaraki Kasen is a regular at the shrine and acts as a mentor (and sometimes guardian) of Reimu, whom she fears is too concerned with worldly desires. Kasen actually initially became Reimu's mentor as part of her own plan, but she continues to view herself as a mentor after her goals were achieved. Reimu mostly thinks of Kasen as a nagging, preachy busybody. However, Reimu often concedes, either because Kasen is usually right or she doesn't want to deal with her. Kasen is openly critical of Reimu, believing her to be too greedy and slack in her duties. In spite of this, Reimu views Kasen as a genuine friend. When fighting Kasen's true self, Reimu was unable to bring herself to fight Kasen whole-heartedly until she realized that the one battling her was actually a separate entity from Kasen. Ruukoto Ruukoto is a robot maid who’s usually seen cleaning the shrine. She was given to Reimu by Yumemi Okazaki. Reimu openly shows her appreciation for Ruukoto. Mima Mima is a vengeful spirit who haunts the Hakurei Shrine. After many confrontations and being resealed by Reimu, she decides to spend her days making fun of the shrine maiden instead of hurting her. Suika Ibuki Suika, who often freeloads her shrine after the events of Immaterial and Missing Power, is her ally during Subterranean Animism. Reimu saw Suika's presence as a nuisance at first, but never really bothered with driving her away. Aya Shameimaru Aya, the tengu reporter, was also her ally during the events of Subterranean Animism. Remilia Scarlet It is unknown if Remilia was involved in the discussions with Reimu Hakurei that led to the creation of the spell card rules. Certainly, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was where Reimu first met the other residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and also where she discovered that Remilia was the mistress. Reimu's actual dialogue with Remilia herself, however, does not necessarily indicate whether they knew each other prior to that meeting or not. At any rate, after their battle in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Remilia often drops by the Hakurei Shrine to hang out with Reimu. She is one of several youkai depicted when Reimu complains about youkai hanging around her shrine in Wild and Horned Hermit, and Reimu successfully argues in an early chapter of Strange and Bright Nature Deity that she should be allowed into a party at the Scarlet Devil Mansion because Remilia always comes to her shrine. Although Remilia is fond of Reimu, she still has a rivalry of sorts with the Shrine Maiden too and is more than happy to get into a duel with her, as shown in Imperishable Night and Remilia's storyline in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. Ragna the Bloodedge Ever since Ragna randomly showed up at the shrine one day, Reimu has been letting him stay there. She says it’s just because she promised to keep him safe. Reimu used to be oblivious to what was really going on, but now she doesn't know what to do with her feelings. Hyde and Minako They were her teammates in the first king of fighters tournament. Reimu gets along well with them, and she enjoys their company. Category:Heroes